Around the House - Wrapping Paper

I hope you all are having a good weekend! Today the high is supposed to be 0 degrees here in our neck of the woods. The windchill is going to be 10 to 20 degrees BELOW zero. BRRRRR!!!! I have to work this afternoon, but Jerry is heading out to ice fish. What a crazy man I married!!

On to my project. Everything But the Kitchen Sink wanted us to use wrapping paper this week in our artwork. I used this lovely handmade paper from Nepal that I purchased at the Paper Source. We have a store in Uptown Minneapolis that I frequent, but you can also purchase from them online.

Anyway, I covered an empty Starbuck's mocha powder tin. SO easy!! Very little embellishment - ribbons from the Paper Source, and a MM charm. I intend to leave it "bare" like this until I use it as a gift. I won't want to put much on it, though, as the paper must be the highlight. Maybe just a tag with the intention or the recipient's name. And I think I'll take it into a store to find a matching Prima flower.

You just never know what you might come up with with all those empty canisters around your house!

scrap sketch Week #52

This is a fun sketch from scrap sketch. I really like the simplicity of it and how it allows for so much possibility. I chose to scrap a couple of my grand-nephews and their father, my nephew Ryan. Oh, what precious pictures of them!

The paper and sentiment tag are from Paper Loft. Buttons and hemp are CTMH. The hardest part of this layout was putting hemp through the buttons, and even that wasn't hard! Very easily a 20-minute layout!

Capturing My Joy

I can't even begin to tell you what it means to me to spend an evening with two "main men." On this Friday evening, I got to do just that. I know some people would look at our little family and wonder why it is such a precious thing that three of us would have time together. Well, Jerry works erratic hours as an auto body painter. He's been with the company 20 years, and he generally works a good day shift, but if there is work, he stays. And if he is busy, he will go to bed extremely early so that he can make it through the next long day. Shane many long days as a Manager of a tanning salon (yes, it's a great business!), and I never quite know when he'll be home. Other than to sleep - that's a certainty!

So when we were all able to go out to dinner, well, I loved it! Jerry treated us to fajitas at Chili's. We ordered the combo for two and then my boys wanted to try the Texas Cheese Fries and the Snacking Onion "things" with jalepenos. What a great meal of laughter and hot, spicy food!

Now that you've heard a little bit of the story, I'll tell you about the layout. We took the pictures in our backyard. I chose Paper Loft Well Worn paper for this along with 2 sheets of sanded down textured CTMH Outdoor Denim. The flowers and large letters are die-cuts from CTMH (a promotion last November). The epoxy letters are Latte from DCWV. All the Outdoor Denim accessories are from CTMH.

I've got journaling tags stacked on the side and attached with large brads. I don't mind if people that look through my books read the top tag, but there are some things written on the inside tags about our conversations that I want Shane to remember in his older years. That's part of my legacy to him on these pages.

Another thing. This pages is the Grand Finale pattern from the CTMH Imagine book. The right side easily allows for a 2" x 10-1/2" strip of typewritten journaling. I RARELY type anything in my books. I use tags, I print, I use cursive, and sometimes I even make mistakes. I think it's really, really important to handwrite as much as possible. I know in this day and age when all want our pages to be the prettiest or the most perfect, we often turn to the computer to journal. But, oh, how the story will come alive in 50 years when Shane is explaining this night to his children and running his hands across my handwritten tags. So I've learned to love how I write - whether it be good, bad, or ugly.

As always, click on the picture if you want to take a larger view!